Impersonal verbs - Easy Learning Grammar Spanish

What is an impersonal verb?An impersonal verb is a verb whose subject is it, but this ‘it’ does not refer to any specific thing; for example, It’s going to rain; It’s nine o’clock.

1Verbs that are always used impersonally

There are some verbs such as llover (meaning to rain) and nevar (meaning to snow), that are only used in the ‘it’ form, the infinitive, and as a gerund (the -ing form of the verb). These are called impersonal verbs because there is no person, animal or thing performing the action.

Llueve.

It’s raining.

Está lloviendo.

It’s raining.

Va a llover.

It’s going to rain.

Nieva.

It’s snowing.

Está nevando.

It’s snowing.

Nevaba.

It was snowing.

Estaba nevando.

It was snowing.

Mañana nevará.

It will snow tomorrow.

2Verbs that are sometimes used impersonally

There are also some other very common verbs that are sometimes used as impersonal verbs, for example hacer, haber and ser.

hacer is used in a number of impersonal expressions relating to the weather:

Hacefrío/calor.

It’s cold/hot.

Ayerhacíamucho frío/calor.

It was very cold/hot yesterday.

Hacesol/viento.

It’s sunny/windy.

Va ahacersol/viento.

It’s going to be sunny/windy.

Haceun tiempo estupendo/ horrible.

It’s a lovely/horrible day.

hacer is also used in combination with que and desde in impersonal time expressions, to talk about how long something has been going on for or how long it is since something happened.

I haven’t been there for several weeks or It is several weeks since I went there.

Note the use of the present simple in Spanish in the above examples where in English we’d use the perfect tense or the past tense.

hacer is also used impersonally in the expression (me/te/le) hace falta, which means it is necessary (for me/you/him).

Sihace falta, voy.

I’ll go if necessary.

Nohace faltallamar.

We/You/I needn’t call.

Mehace faltaotro vaso más.

I need another glass.

Nohace faltaser un experto.

You don’t need to be an expert.

Nohacía falta.

It wasn’t necessary.

Note that not all impersonal expressions in Spanish are translated into English using impersonal expressions.

haber too can be used impersonally with the meaning there is/there are, there was/there were, there will be, and so on. It has the special form hay in the present. For the other tenses, you take the third person singular (the ‘it’ form) of haber in the appropriate tense.

Hayun cine cerca de aquí.

There’s a cinema near here.

Haydos supermercados.

There are two supermarkets.

Nohaybares.

There are no bars.

Habíamucho ruido.

There was a lot of noise.

Habíamuchos coches.

There were a lot of cars.

Huboun accidente.

There was an accident.

Hubovarios problemas.

There were several problems.

¿Habrátiempo?

Will there be time?

¿Habrásuficientes sillas?

Will there be enough chairs?

Note that you should always use the singular form (never the plural), no matter how many things there are.

haber is used in the construction hay que with an infinitive to talk about actions that need to be taken.

Hay quetrabajar más.

We/You need to work harder.

Hay queser respetuoso.

You/We/One must be respectful.

Habráque decírselo.

We’ll/You’ll have to tell him.

ser can be used in certain impersonal constructions with adjectives, for example:

es/era/fue + adjective + infinitive

Esimportante ahorrar dinero.

It’s important to save money.

Fuetorpe hacer eso.

It was silly to do that.

Seríamejor esperar.

It would be better to wait.

es/era/fue + adjective + que + verb

Es cierto quetengo problemas.

It’s true that I’ve got problems.

Es verdad quetrabaja mucho.

It’s true that he works hard.

Note that when they are used in the negative (no es cierto que...; no es verdad que...), these expressions have to be followed by the subjunctive.

Grammar Extra!When impersonal expressions that don’t state facts are followed by que (meaning that) and a verb, this verb must be in the subjunctive.For this reason, the following non-factual impersonal expressions are all followed by the subjunctive: